Saturday, March 08, 2008

Saturday in NYCI recently had a big realization while hitting my favorite 5th Avenue and Madison Avenue shops. Shopping with a baby is VERY different. As soon as we arrived this week and I had a little down time, baby and I headed straight for my favorite store Henri Bendel on 5th Ave. After wrestling the bugaboo through the heavy front door, we managed to work our way into the ground level of the boutique store aka cosmetics heaven. If any of you have ever been in this store you will know that this area of the store is laden with cosmetic sales "sharks". I usually dart through this department quickly and head up the stairs to peruse the many multiple levels of fabulous merchandising displays. When you are ascending the multiple levels of Henri Bendel it seems like the store keeps going and going. It is nice because it isn't like your typical department store with racks and racks, it is merchandise very nicely with several mini - department "rooms" and beautiful displays. Anyhow - I found myself standing at the bottom of the store in the "shark tank" at the bottom of the first grouping of stairs. I realized oh yeah - I've got a baby stroller, I'm gonna be needing an elevator. In the 12 seconds it took for this realization to sink in, I was surrounded by the cosmetic sales team demanding they make me over, spray me with the latest eu de parfum, or demonstrate the latest MUST HAVE accessory. These sales people are great- or not so great ( depending on whether you are me or Henri Bendel). One perfume, 2 lip glosses and a huge fragrant candle later, I was shown my way to the Elevator which wisked me in a cold dark enclosure to the 2nd floor of the store. Gone are the days of leisurely ascending escalators or steps while shopping, the elevator is my new mode of shopping transportation. On a positive note, it was great to be able to get out with baby, he was quite a patient trooper while mommy shopped and walked and he also even managed to side track the aggressive sales sharks with his dashing good looks and flirty smiles. All jokes aside, the trip has been amazing - it's great to get to milder temperatures. I'm looking forward to another run in Central Park later today. Happy Running!

Running Pet Peeves

"You're almost there!" (as if we don't know..and haven't been looking at our garmin every 23 seconds)

Runners who blow snot rockets with no regard to positioning or wind direction!

"Looking Good!" at the end of a race (knowing I have salt, saliva and goodness knows what other bodily fluids leaking from me)

Runners who make nasty remarks when you accidently brush them or bump into them (come on people there are thousands of us out here running and I'm pretty sure if I brushed you, you aren't in the running for prize money)